The David Pakman Show - Their worst fears come true as it all falls apart

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump posts repeatedly about alleged vandalism at the Reflecting Pool, despite no evidence, and demands accountability -- David launches his new book, "Pay Attention: How the Algorithms and Media Wars Are Suppressing Truth and Rewiring Your Brain." Pre-order now at: davidpakman.com/attention -- Donald Trump shares a photograph believed to have been taken at Camp David and refers to the woman pictured as a great daughter -- Questions about post-Trump succession grow as JD Vance faces mounting scrutiny and Marco Rubio gains traction -- New polling shows support weakening in states that have historically backed Donald Trump by large margins -- Fox News prepares for a post-Trump era, emphasized by its recent focus on broader conservative themes rather than Trump-focused stories -- Growing doubts emerge about whether JD Vance can become Trump's successor as Republicans question his ability to energize the movement -- On the Bonus Show: Keir Starmer out as UK prime minister, a Trump-backed candidate wins the Colombian election, Trump's Qatari jet arrives in US, and much more... 🍴 Forkful: Get 50% off your 1st box + 10% off your next 3 boxes at https://davidpakman.com/forkful 🎙️ Plaud: Get the Note Pro at https://davidpakman.com/plaud or https://amzn.to/3PurJeG 💻 Sponsored by Private Internet Access: 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/DavidP 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% off & free shipping at https://smalls.com -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:23) Trump destroys Iran agreement (09:00) Trump's reflecting pool disaster (19:47) David launches new book (28:34) Trump confuses woman with daughter (36:38) The post-Trump plan for MAGA (45:24) Trump's approval declining in red states (52:14) Fox News is moving on from Trump (1:00:05) The plan to oust JD Vance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. The Iran ceasefire is already in trouble. I know this won't surprise a lot of you. Negotiators have walked away. J.D. Vance was left in Switzerland trying to explain why another supposed Trump deal in the most ended war ever is on shaky ground once again. Trump then flipped out in an extraordinary public meltdown over the reflecting pool posting

this increasingly bizarre series of messages that raise even more questions. and a strange truth social posts about a mystery woman raises new concerns about Trump's cognitive state, plus a very important announcement about my new book, pay attention officially launching for pre-order. We do have a number of contingency plans on the assumption that the administration will try to suppress the book. We are also going to dig into the growing battle over who inherits MAGA at the end of the day. because Trump's weak approval numbers, even in red states, suggest he simply may not be able

to be the kingmaker he wants to be in 2028. And if you're thinking J.D. Vance, well, there are more and more signs that Republicans are losing confidence in him as well. So all of that and more today, if I can squeeze it in. Well, is anybody surprised that the Iran ceasefire is imploding again. The administration is panicking and almost like a sick joke. Vice President J.D. Vann says that this is kind of funny. Kind of funny, but causing global horror. The most ended war in American history, as I have come to know it, Donald Trump's

Iran war, is seeing another completely pathetic setback. And I know because I saw your emails last week, many of you expected that exactly this was going to happen. What took place in Switzerland is that Iranian negotiators walked out of the peace talks. Now, this was going to be it. We were going to finally get to the 30 second ending of this war. We signed a letter. We would negotiate in Switzerland. We have 60 days to negotiate, but we're certainly not going to need that much. But the whole point is the end was in sight.

And then in comes golden boy, J.D. Vance, who is going to head negotiations, which should have been a red flag to everybody right away. And it doesn't work because Donald Trump threatens to blow the S out of the S out of the US. of them and Iran immediately says we are lodging a formal complaint with the Pakistani and Qatari mediators and then the Iranian negotiators simply walked out. The negotiators on their way out also mentioned, you know, Trump should be pretty careful because Iran's armed forces are ready to respond if Trump does start the bombing. So we go from it's finally over again to it's 60 days to negotiate to each side threatening the other with bombs and military hostilities.

So then we get to J.D. Vance. This happened just minutes ago. He gave a sort of press conference. I guess we would call it in Switzerland. He's getting ready to leave. It's not going to be negotiated here. And Vance actually says some of this is funny. He goes, it's funny. We were trying to call the inspectors at 2 a.m. and they didn't pick up. It's all so funny. People are dying here. Billions of dollars are being spent. Anyway, let's listen to what J.D. Vance had to say here. And it is, it is nauseating. Also in terms of when we could see this entire conflict end, do you think this can end by the midterm elections? Well, look, right now, the conflict is in a ceasefire. And our certainly our hope is that we get to the final deal and a permanent settlement. But right now, I think we've made great progress.

and we should all celebrate that. In terms of when the nuclear inspectors are going to start, it's funny, we were trying to call some of the inspectors last night around two. It's so funny. It's ha-ha funny. You guys know that. Inspectors last night around two in the morning, as you can expect, not many people were answering their phone at two in the morning.

I expect that will happen at the minimum this week. But we think even some of those conversations with the inspectors and with the IAEA could happen as soon as today. But I haven't checked in with our team since we made that too. 2 a.m. phone call to some of those inspectors. Funny is not necessarily the word that comes to my mind here. It's so funny that they're not answering our calls. It's so funny that we're about to leave.

It's so funny that we've made great progress yet both sides are threatening to bomb each other. J.D. Vance then says, he kind of weighs in on what they told the Iranians yesterday. And he goes, we don't like the trash talk. is going to respond to your trash talk. Understand that Trump threatened to assassinate Iranian negotiators. And JD goes, you know, the trash talk. I don't know about the trash talk. Sorry, wrong clip. Here we go. What we told the Iranians yesterday is when you guys engage in what us millennials might call trash talk. I'm just such a hip millennial and that's what we call it. You can't expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record.

So when they say things that aren't true, the president is going to respond to it. I'm going to respond to it. Americans are going to respond to it. When they make threats that aren't rooted in reality, they have to accept that the president in the United States is actually going to set the record straight. That's all that happened. So yes, there was a little bit of threatening. There was a little bit of whining.

But at the end of the day, the talks continued and we made great progress. It appears as though the progress is not really taking place because Iranian negotiators walked out and both sides are threatening each other with violence. Now, let me just to kind of give you a sense of how backwards all of this is, very rarely in my life have I found myself thinking we would be much better off by adding Marco Rubio to a situation. That's that's not my thought at sporting events. It's not, it wasn't my thought in the Senate. It's never been my instinct that the addition of Marco Rubio would help anything. But Vance is so terrible at all of this that I actually do find myself saying we might be better

off if Marco Rubio had been sent rather than J.D. Vance. Another just completely beyond belief moment. Vance goes, what Jared Kushner and the Qataris have been able to accomplish is a classic Trump deal. Now, when I hear classic Trump deal, I think, oh, so it's like a complete and total failure. I see that because I don't know of any other way to interpret a classic Trump deal. As much as I see some of the press misreporting on this, and of course, you know, buttressed by what the Iranians are saying, or not all Iranians. I want to be clear.

There are a lot of Iranians who are telling the truth about what happened yesterday, but you see some social media reporting that gets this wrong. But fundamentally, what Jared and the Qataris and the entire team here in Bergenstock accomplished is, to me, a classic Trump deal where if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they're going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people. That's a very, very good and very classic Trump deal. That's great for our people, great for the people of Iran. And fundamentally again, will contribute to this regional security architecture that we've built. Another classic Trump deal. Global incompetence and humiliate. born out of a desire for self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement.

Of course, another classic Trump deal. And then finally, not really a surprise to anybody. JD's bailing out. We've got 60 days above. JD after fewer than 48 hours in Switzerland. He goes, it's beautiful here. But I got to get home to the United States. What a profile in courage and diplomacy.

Those technical negotiations are going to continue over the week. and days to come. We wanted to set up a structure for that so that you could have proper political oversight, but obviously as much as this place is very beautiful, I can't stay here for the next 60 days. I'm about to go back home to the United States. Right. The technical teams are going to be working with proper oversight to make sure that we're accomplishing the objectives that matter for every day.

They told me no cappuccino after 11 a.m. And as beautiful as it is here, there's no skiing because it's summer. And I'm going back to the United States. But Mr. Vice President, sir, what about the- entire deal that must be signed. Well, I don't know about that. It seems that for the war to, it seems that for the war to really end, it's going to have to end for a 33rd time. Ending at 32 times is simply not quite enough. Donald Trump had a complete and total meltdown after multiple global failures over the weekend. Now, of course, the Iran deal negotiation has completely

fallen flat as Iranian negotiators walked out of the room, threatened to start bombing once again, and J.D. Vance said, I've been here like 45 hours. I'm going to go back home. But that's not the only failure that's taking place. Trump is having to be dragged off of truth social after a humiliating disaster with the reflecting pool. Now, the reflecting pool both is and is not an issue of major consequence and importance in the United States. What do I mean by that? On the one hand, it's just a reflecting pool. And whether it's longer or wider or thinner or girthier than any other reflecting pool is not really relevant to the economic status of the average American. That's on the one hand. But on the other hand, it is emblematic of and a microcosm of everything that is wrong

with the way that Donald Trump does business and runs the country. contract by using a bogus urgent emergency declaration to do the reflecting pool renovation, I guess you would call it. And it's done incompetently after Donald Trump stakes his reputation on it and the beauty of America under Trump. And immediately the thing is filled with green algae and pieces are coming off of it. And then Trump starts saying that it is his political opponents who are vandalizing it and claims there have been arrests, but we've been given no information about the people supposedly

arrested. It's everything that is Trump. It's just a reflecting pool, but it's corruption, it's cronyism, it's lies, it's scapegoating. So Donald Trump took to truth social as he often does. Where's my truth social button here? Dear God. Truth central. There it is.

I love Tesla. Just a little Tesla for good measure. Trump takes the truth social and starts issuing a number of different declarations, starting with quote. Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful vandalism of our beautiful reflecting pool. It hasn't looked or worked like this since 1922 when it was originally built. But even then it leaked badly and didn't work. Hours worked perfectly, including the mirror-like finish, perfectly reflecting the two great monuments, which it never had before.

What these terrible vandals have done is a true affront to both presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and should be dealt with accordingly. We met with contractors today. We'll probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs, but we'll have them done as quickly as possible. What they have damaged does not even include the earlier killing of a large amount of grass, which was by far the least of it. They took some form of knife or blade and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete. They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the pool. These are some vandals, huh? The reflecting pool was never

so beautiful as it just was one week ago. Even going back to 1922 when it opened, we are very proud of what we have done with this magnificent structure. We will get it repaired quickly to an equal level of beauty, blah, blah, blah. None of this really makes a lot of sense. There's 24-hour surveillance. Ted Lou had a good post about this, which we'll look at a little bit later. There's 24 hour surveillance. Trump is talking about extensive deliberate damage being done to this thing. What happened is Trump gave a no bid contract and it didn't really fix the problem at the reflecting pool. Trump spends more time bragging about how beautiful and historic his reflecting pool is than actually explaining to us what took place. And of course, last month, Trump said,

you couldn't possibly cut the pool with a knife. It's so strong. It's so powerful. And now we're supposed to believe that vandals with a knife carved a 250 foot gash into the thing, one of the most monitored locations in D.C. We have no footage and we have no information about the arrests. And the theme always is with Trump. The project being damaged is an affront to Washington and to Lincoln themselves and to Magas and to Patriots. And it's like a crime report of sorts. It's very, very weird, except it all seems to be fabricated. So Trump continuing.

What does another post, quote, work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized reflecting pool. I just inspected it. Trump known to be a very good building and construction inspector. I just inspected it and could only say to myself and those gathered around me. me, wow, who would do such a thing? Sick, deranged people. We will fix it, President Donald J. Trump.

It's all totally absurd and ridiculous on its face. Every problem in Donald Trump's world is either sabotage, enemies, villains. It can't just be like someone screwed it up. There's a maintenance issue. There was a failure. You didn't hire the best people. You tried to solve what wasn't really the problem. And it's funny and also kind of disturbing that at the end of the day, this is a decorative pool.

I'm not diminishing the importance of nice looking cities and the nation's capital looking good. But it's a decorative pool at the end of the day. And what Trump seems most bothered by is the idea that something he promoted might not be perfect. That's really what bothers him at the end of the day. And there's this surreal visual of Trump conducting this emergency truth social campaign about what at the end of the day is a decorative pool. But if you consider what he's saying for a second, Congressman Ted Lou, I think gets it right. Ted Lou posted to Twitter, quote, there is a 24-7 camera that shows the reflecting pool. If someone went into the pool and made a 250-foot gash, it would have been seen.

Trump is lying again. Everyone knows it. But the people at the Justice Department are randomly going after people to soothe Trump's fragile ego. I think that that's absolutely right. And just go back to what Donald Trump said about the reflecting pool last month, which is even if you took a knife to it, which is what he now says happened, you wouldn't be able to damage it. This will last for at least 50 years. You'll never have a leak. It's very strong. You couldn't. If you had a knife, I don't want to give anybody ideas. If you had a knife, you can't even cut it. So strong, so powerful. It's a powerful rubber. It is beautiful. Sealed. And I looked at just one of the little pieces that they did to finish. It's like a piece of glass, beautiful color, beautiful everything.

So if you had a knife, Trump said, you wouldn't even be able to do anything. But that's exactly what he says happened. And we don't have the video of it. If multiple arrests have been made, We should be able to see the names of the people, the charges, show us the footage, show us all of it. So as usual, Trump boxes himself in by saying this thing is indestructible. And now he wants you to believe the pool was unbelievably strong because he did it. Trump would never do something weak. That's pathetic for beta males. So strong. And also, vandals destroyed it with a knife and some chemicals. And we can't tell you their names or what they've been charged with and we definitely can't show you the surveillance footage.

Anybody believing this crap? Now the bigger story, it's not really the pool. It's this incessant need for Trump to turn every single setback into a conspiracy or an attack rather than just admitting something may have gone wrong. You can apply it to just about any area of Trump's governance or lack thereof. And that's the theme. It's happening here. It's just a reflecting pool, but it's another corrupt, cronyistic, incompetent incident that

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Go to plod.a.ai slash Pacman and use code Pacman for 17% off all products. The link is in the description. All right. I want to talk for a minute about something that's become increasingly obvious over the last few months and I kind of even went back and forth about whether to make this video. Some of you know that I have a new book coming out and the pre-order campaign has been scheduled to start today for a while. We've kind of been building to today. Now, this is happening in a world where independent media is under pressure and under attack from the Trump administration. They even put me specifically, your favorite left-handed

Argentinian Jewish podcaster, they even put me specifically on a list, we are not under pressure because we're losing audience or because people are not interested in the content. In fact, it's the opposite. The reason that independent voices are becoming more influential than ever is that we are delivering something people want and there are people in positions of power who don't like that. Now, as many of you remember from a couple of weeks ago, Whitehouse.gov, the official website of the White House of the Trump administration, put me on an official list of media offenders. And we're putting that up on the screen. They singled me out by name. And it's not because I got facts wrong or I violated some rule or committed some crime.

I'm on this list because I'm willing to criticize this administration and report on what they're doing. And I have no big corporate boss they can go to. or seven layers of management that they can lean on and threaten to sue and pressure to shut me up. They don't like that. It's simply up to you in the audience whether I can continue doing this. If all of you go away and you go, I'm not watching this anymore, the show is over. I mean, it's really that simple. They don't like that.

And I want to remind some of my newer viewers, this is not the first time that they've done this. When my last book came out, this book over here, the Echo Machine. Someone within the Trump administration apparently tried to pressure Amazon not to sell the book. They listed about a dozen books by left-wing commentators and said, do not sell these books. My book was one of those books. Now, the goal was never. Let's debate the ideas in David's book. They just wanted to stop people from reading it in the first place, period.

And look at the history of movements that tried to ban books. And it is not a robust defense of free speech from these cowards to try to do that. That is what authoritarian do. They don't want competition in the marketplace of ideas. They want fewer voices. They want loyalty. They don't want scrutiny. They don't want independent analysis.

So that brings us to why I'm talking about this today. My new book is officially available for preorder today. The campaign starts today. We've been building to this for a while. I had no idea when I wrote this book, which was a ton of work, especially with a newborn at home at the time. And this was a big project. I had no idea that I would be on a White House list on the day that the preorder campaign

starts. Now, the book is called pay attention. It is about how digital platforms that we use every single day, it's about how they work, how they are designed to manipulate. how they are taken advantage of by bad actors, including like the people in the Trump administration. If you use social media, if you're on the digital platforms, if you have kids who are on them, if you're a teacher and you have kids who are on, this is a must read book to understand how this all works. Because what I extensively researched and wrote about allows me to pull the curtain

back on how the algorithms work, how the recommendation systems work, how these engagement incentives and outrage cycles shape what millions of people end up believing in. A lot of people assume I'm just consuming information on these platforms. And what people often don't realize is that you're interacting with systems that are designed to maximize attention, amplify emotionally salient content, reinforce beliefs rather than allow you to think critically, and just keep people locked up in these informational ecosystems. So this goes way beyond just, oh, it's cultural. This is about elections.

This is about public opinion. This determines who gains power, who keeps power. And if you've watched the rise of Trumpism and the conspiracy theories and the radicalization stuff I talk about on the show all the time, you have an instinct for how some of those forces work. The book explains how that happens. Now I am so excited about this book, but I am, to be perfectly honest, pretty nervous about the situation as well, because if you think back to almost two years ago,

it'll basically be two years by the time my book is out. It'll basically be almost two years. When the first book came out, I was barely on the radar of the Trump administration. I wasn't on any lists. Stephen Chung, Caroline Levitt, Don Jr., they were not tweeting attacks on me, retweeting attacks on me. And then the Trump administration still tried to get my first book removed from Amazon. So I don't know how far they're going to go this time, especially now that those people I just mentioned are attacking me on Twitter. And I am on an official whitehouse.gov list. The last thing propagandists want is for people to understand the mechanisms that are being used against them. That's why I wrote this book. And that's why preorders matter so much. It's about

signaling, hey, publishers, retailers, media outlets, recommendation systems, there is demand for independent ideas and for independent voices. So I am coming to you today asking for your help. Pre-orders will determine how widely the book is distributed. How many copies are bookstores going to stock? Is Barnes & Noble going to put it in their stores at all? Will it reach a bestseller list? And the way to ensure that those people like me trying to expose the manipulation, have a shot

at doing so is we are in a direct competition with the people doing the manipulating. So if you value independent media, if you've gotten something from this program, if you want to understand how modern political persuasion works, I'm asking you to preorder the book today. You can get signed copies. You can go to David Pakman.com slash attention and that will list all the ways you can get the book. Signed copies are available from booksmith. The link is on the website. Last time we were kind of slow making signed copies available.

I ended up signing thousands of them in a very short period of time. Really cramped up my hand. So this time we're doing it from the beginning. You can also get the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble. The audio book is available. the Kindle book, all of the options are at David Pakman.com slash attention. We start today. We have like 600 or so pre-orders that trickled in, just as people noticed that the book was listed.

But the campaign starts today. I'm going to keep you posted on how it goes. This is a really easy, simple thing to do, David Pakman.com slash attention. And thank you as always for making this show possible. This was an insane amount of work. It's incredible just to even see when the pre-orders trickle in. It is such a flattering and humbling show of support for the work that I've been doing and trying to do and we'll try to continue to do.

So signed copies available, Amazon Barnes & Noble, audiobook, Kindle, David Pakman.com slash attention. Check out also on that page, the beautiful blurbs about the book from Jessica Tarry. Jessica Tarlov. She's a nasty liberal on Fox News. Jessica Tarlov and Brian Tyler Cohen graciously read and blurbed the book for me. And after you order, feel feel free to shoot us an email. Info at David Pakman.com. Just go, David, I ordered it on booksmith signed copy or Barnes & Noble. No need to do it. But you can always email and let us know. We love to see that. David Pakman.com slash attention. All right, we had a terrifying, terrifying situation over the weekend. The president of the United States suffered what I can only call in all honesty a serious,

cognitive event. This one is scary. It's getting worse. And I don't think there's any way around it at this point. You might have seen that Donald Trump posted a picture to his truth social, captioned, great daughter, my honor. And in that picture, there is, in that post, there is a picture of a woman. And if you're at all familiar with Donald Trump's family tree, you would immediately realize that is not any of Donald Trump's daughters. What does he mean, my honor? What is he talking about?

And of course, immediately this raises major concerns led to massive speculation as to what this is and what Trump meant. Now let's go through what we know. The photo we have been able to determine was taken at Camp David. Here is a photo of the inside of Camp David during George W. Bush's presidency. You can see George W. in the corner, his wife on the opposite couch, many recognizable officials during that time. Now here are a couple side by sides of the pillows on the couch in the.

the Bush photo next to the one that Donald Trump posted last night. Now, you can tell by looking at these side by sides, it's the exact same pillow. It's the same couch. The photo was taken at Camp David. Okay. Now, there's a blanket behind this woman that has the seal of the state of Arkansas on it. That's another important detail. So this was likely taken at Camp David during Bill Clinton presidency since Clinton was the governor of Arkansas before he came president. It's logical to think that there would be such a pillow about Arkansas at Camp David when Bill Clinton was president of the United States. So, okay, Camp David in the 90s. Now, who is the woman? A lot of people believe that this is Margo von der Saar Katsimatidis. That is the wife of billionaire businessman,

man, John Katzimatidis. Now, here's a side by side comparing a photo of Margo with the one that Donald Trump posted. So this could be her based on looks, but also because she and John might have been in the social circles that would have gotten them access to Camp David in the 1990s. There are photographs online of the couple with both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump at different time. So it sort of tracks as far as social circles and access to presidents. Now, why did Donald Trump post this and what did he mean by it? Trump was at Camp David over the weekend. It's possible he saw the photo. It's possible Trump thought it was one of his daughters and posted it to the internet. That would be a telltale sign of dementia. Trump sees a picture of a blonde human female. It's at Camp

David while he's president and he goes, must be one of my own daughters. Not recognizing your own family members would be a pretty serious sign of dementia and cognitive decline. Also, yesterday was Father's Day. So the timing would be kind of weird and ironic. That would be a very bad scenario. Now, there are some people defending Donald Trump saying, no, no, no. What he meant was Margo Katzimatidis has a great daughter. And so we looked into that.

Margot's daughter, Andrea, has been the chairwoman. of the Manhattan Republican Party since 2017. Could that be what Trump meant? Maybe posting a random picture of the mom and denouncing great daughter, my honor, is still really weird behavior. Like, their defense is still a really weird scenario. Now, I've also seen speculation that Donald Trump is threatening John Katsimatidis or trying to out that Trump.

that Trump is actually the father of Margot's daughter. That's just absolutely insane. I don't know. I would love to know what you think is going on. Immediate cognitive decline and dementia concerns over this. And meanwhile, I think it is relevant to point out that Donald Trump's own relationships with his daughters and family members in general seem extraordinarily strained. Now, I think that it's been formally denied that there is any alienation or estrangement from any

of his children. But it's also been pretty widely reported that Trump's relationships with his kids are, you know, not exactly what a lot of people, especially parents think are typical healthy relationships with their children. And there's the idea of, is there something here? It's father's day. Trump is to some degree upset about how his relationships with children. It's all speculation. It's all completely insane. So I want to hear from you. What do you think is going on? Send me an email info at David Pakman.com or leave a comment and make sure that you are following me on whichever platform you're seeing this video on. It helps us. It costs nothing. And it's really important.

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I want to talk to you about the secret emergency plan that MAGA has been hiding but has started to leak right now. This is super interesting. Now, many of you know for years now, MAGA has operated with a very simple assumption that we've talked about before, which is, okay, Trump wins in 2024. That happened. Trump leads for four years. You know, we're halfway through the term. He's president. I can't exactly say he's leading. But the idea is that then at the end of this final presidential term, Trump decides who replaces him in 2028, Republicans, When, end of story, Trump's the kingmaker, he's the hero. The problem is that over the last few weeks, something has started to suggest that might not

happen. Republicans have started accidentally revealing that they have a serious problem. And the problem is that all of a sudden, no, nobody is really confident that Trump is going to be able to do that. And I'll explain what I mean by that. For all the talk about Trump dominating Republican politics, there's one thing Trump can't do. He can't run again in 2028. And they've accepted that reality, mostly, not all of them, but but most of them. And so the question that they now have, and it's highly relevant given

what's going on in these negotiations around Iran in Switzerland with J.D. Vance, the question they're left with is who inherits MAGA? The obvious conventional wisdom for years now has been it's J.D. Vance. Trump picked them as VP. He picked him as VP to a degree because his own own sons said, this is the guy that we should pick. He's, you know, ambitious to a degree. He's positioned himself as the logical error by being Trump's VP. But the disaster of J.D. Vance over the last especially six months has sort of thrown into turmoil the idea that Vance is going to be the inheritor. Look at what we've been watching unfold. Vance is increasingly being sent to handle the administration's most difficult and risky stuff, which, listen, this is common with VPs.

Biden did it to Kamala when he said she's running the border. And the Biden administration was not particularly popular in general when it comes to its handling of the border. And to a degree, Kamala Harris got saddled with that debt or weight, I guess we would call it. So it's common that VPs are given difficult assignments where if it goes well, the president gets the credit, if it goes poorly, the vice president gets the blame. So that gets us to these negotiations in Iran. If they were to succeed, which it already seems like they've blown up, Trump said, I'm going to take the credit. It's me ending the war again. And if the negotiations fail, which so far they are because Iranian negotiators walked out and J.D. Vance didn't even spend 48 hours in

Switzerland. He's already coming back to the U.S. Who is there holding the bag when that happens? It's J.D. Vance and Trump sort of joked if it goes well, I'll take the credit and if it doesn't, I'll blame JD, but they're doing it. We have a clip of Ben Shapiro already saying, I think that the problem here is JD. You've got other right wingers I've seen on social media saying vance can't handle this. So they kind of laughed when Trump suggested it, but it's serious. This is exactly how it works. Vance is handed a responsibility for a situation where the upside is Trump's because the buck stops

with Trump and the downside is all. Vance's. And the result is that Vance is just getting pounded left and right. Foreign policy hawks don't trust him and they shouldn't. The isolationists don't trust him either. The negotiations are controversial. And all of a sudden, the obvious successor, boy wonder, does not look inevitable at all. And people are talking more and more about, you know who, Marco Rubio. Rubio's trajectory has been very interesting because during the Asia trip, Rubio was more and more visible. He seems like he has more of Trump's trust to be frank. And he is right in the middle of the administration's initiatives.

And in contrast to J.D. Vance, Rubio often seems to be playing the role of, I'm the competent, buttoned up Republicans. I'm a real Republican. I'm not this like techno whatever Peter Thiel protege, which J.D. Vance looks like. I'm not this just like completely whacked out lunatic that Trump appears to be. And importantly, the donors seem to get it because the foreign leaders are increasingly seeing Rubio as the guy to be respected. The establishment Republicans are seeing Rubio that way. And so donors are starting to suggest, we're.

We're not so sure about Vance, but Rubio is potentially interesting. Now, am I bringing this up as this is terrible for the Republican Party or am I bringing this up as this is potentially good for the Republican Party? It depends. But there isn't a scenario where Rubio rather than Vance is much better for the Republican party because Rubio could bridge MAGA, which might be upset if the Republican Party goes in a non-Maga direction after Trump is gone. And you've got your traditional Republican factions who don't really like Trump, but they might

accept Rubio. Rubio as a slightly less Trumpy Republican might have some appeal. And I believe that this is where the story really is. I don't think Trump has settled this question. And I don't even know that Trump can settle it. Let's kind of take that in two parts. Trump's political influence is huge today. He's still the de facto leader of the Republican Party, even if he's not

not getting, even if not every endorsement is going his way. But if you look at history, these lame duck presidents often discover, I am not as able to control the succession plan as I thought I would be able to. Barack Obama preferred candidates who lost. George W. Bush was unpopular. He didn't get to choose his successor. Ronald Reagan didn't get to choose his. And so what happens is that these political movements become a lot less obedient once

they realize the leader doesn't have any leverage over us. My expectation is that by 2028, Republican governors, senators, cabinet members, donors, activists, media personalities, all these kind of power brokers are going to have different ideas about who should replace Trump. And the secret plan is that there is no plan or consensus or designated air, but they know increasingly that they don't want Trump in the. middle of it. So these competing factions pretend succession has been solved publicly to play nice and to seem organized. But then Vance stumbles again and again. And Trump is asked about her and he goes,

these are both good options. And Rubio gains visibility. And then you hear about some other ambitious Republican who's positioning himself for the future. And they can no longer hide the truth, which is that this kind of fight over who inherits Trump is. is happening right now behind the scenes. The donors are throwing the weight of their money around, but they don't want to admit it publicly because they realize that revealing the level of chaos that's taking place makes them look like maybe they can't actually handle this in a coherent way. I think that this is delightful.

And of course, there's always a chance that by Trump, like, there's a world. Let me say this in the best possible way. There's a world in which Trump. getting to pick his successor is the best thing for the left because Trump would almost certainly pick some lunatic. But the chaos of Trump wanting to have that power and maybe not having it, maybe the best possible thing to expose these people as, hey, even once Trump is gone, it's still a mess of a party. And I think that that's a very valuable idea to reinforce.

This doesn't become grandma's Republican party once Trump leaves because. there are going to be a whole bunch of other problems. Maybe it's better to consider something other than the Republican Party. I think that if Democrats manage this the right way, play it correctly. They could do really well in 28. But we've got to get past 26 first. And that's going to be, that's a big deal first that we have to deal with. All right. There is something very interesting in Donald Trump's latest approval numbers that a lot of people are missing. Now, the headlines are very obvious. We see them in every poll. Trump underwater, Trump less popular than ever, Trump approval is collapsing and yada, yada, yada. We have new numbers that have Donald Trump at 37%

approval. Look at this. And 58% disapproval. So in that poll, Trump is minus 21 in terms of approval. That's very bad. You can see that everywhere. I don't think that's the most interesting part of the analysis. I took a deeper dive at where the decline is happening, which state, let's go state by state. Because if we kind of sat back and saw, oh, Trump's really unpopular in California and Massachusetts and New York and Vermont, which has almost no people and love Vermont. I mean, it's just they have like 600,000 people. And Connecticut, who cares, right? He's not going to win those states.

The Republican isn't going to win those states. anyway and that doesn't really make a difference. They were never going to vote for Trump or whoever replaces Trump. But that is not where presidents get themselves into trouble. Presidents get into trouble when they start losing support from the people on their side or who supposedly are expected to be on their side. And that is what is happening. Look at the states that have seen some of the biggest declines in Trump approval. It's Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, Idaho, West Virginia, Wyoming. These are like some of the most right-wing pro-Trump states in the country.

And you look at a lot of these and you see as much as 20-point declines since the start of Trump's second term in terms of approval of the job that Trump is doing. Think about Wyoming for a second. is arguably Trump's strongest state still, but this is kind of the point. His strongest state and he has seen net approval fall from plus 47 to plus 24. Now plus 24 is massive approval, right? Like Wyoming is a hardcore pro-Trump state, but plus 47 and plus 24 are pretty different things.

You look at Florida, which went from plus 9 to minus 11. That's a 20 point swing for Trump's approval. Ohio plus eight, now minus 13. That's a 21 point decline. Kentucky plus 23 to flat. So that's like minus 23 relative to where he was. I believe that this is the story. The political danger for an administration is not related to your opponents disliking you.

Of course they dislike you. The political danger is your supporters aren't quite as enthusiastic right now. And what's striking about the map is that just about every state is moving in the same direction. It's still red where you would expect it to be red. It's blue mostly where you would expect it to be blue. But the margins for Trump are shrinking everywhere. He's gone negative in some red states and he is ultra negative in a bunch of blue states. So there's essentially no cushion there.

And if you're a Republican trying to get yourself reelected in these forthcoming midterms, Oh boy, you've got to be careful with this because you could be in real trouble. Congressional elections are not usually decided by people are doing political 180s. I used to be a progressive and now I'm a Republican or vice versa. It's my politics are basically the same. But am I enthusiastic about voting again for the people in power? Who's going to show up? Who's going to stay home?

Who's motivated or who's kind of like, yeah, I'm still a Republican, but I don't care enough about this because they haven't been good to me. to actually go out and vote. So I'm going to sit this one out. And so that can just kind of be like, I love Trump becomes. Trump's okay. Yeah, I still would vote for him over Kamala, but like, I'm not as enthusiastic right now. That's not somebody switching sides. It's just changing the degree to which you're passionate about what you're seeing. And this is potentially, potentially destructive for Republicans in November. Young voters overwhelmingly negative, um, independence overwhelmingly negative, women overwhelmingly negative on Trump. He's underwater essentially with every group. Now, combine that

with something else. The administration insists that these numbers don't really matter. Every bad poll is fake and every warning sign is nothing and when even a Republican goes, I don't like what Trump is doing here there. It's all. just written off. And I don't think that that's a smart political strategy. If it's minor, you can kind of ignore it to not give it oxygen. But there's a point where it's not like the, the polling itself isn't the problem. It's the conditions that are creating these polls, the economy. People don't think it's going well. People were told your costs are going to go down and they're up. Foreign policy. I'm not going to start any new wars. We are. We are.

I mean, I don't even know if I believe we're in a ceasefire right now. We either had a 16 week war that was going to last three weeks or we are now in now in week 17 of a three week war. Cost of living, which we know is up. Voter fatigue and all of this different stuff. So I believe that the most important takeaway from the map isn't, oh, Trump's unpopular in Rhode Island. Of course he is.

Everybody knows that. It's the erosion of support in red states where Republicans expect to be really safe there. And that's a trend that is in the background and it can remain in the background. And now it's election day, not now, but when we get to election day, we would say now it's election day. And all of a sudden, it's not clear that a whole bunch of Republicans are going to get themselves reelected. Only comes to fruition if we actually get out there and vote in November.

I hope all of you are planning to do that. I certainly am. The David Packman show is an audience-supported program and the best, most direct way to support the show is by becoming a member at joinpackman.com. You'll get the daily bonus show, the daily commercial free show, and plenty of other great membership perks. Get the full experience by signing up at join packman.com. Let's continue our conversation about succession planning here. I believe Fox News has a problem. Now, it is not a ratings problem or a revenue problem right now, but it could become one. For almost 10 years,

right wing media has had a very easy business model, which is we have the patriotic president and for the four years that Trump was gone and it was Biden. We need to get back to the patriotic president Trump and then Trump comes back and then everything's good and we want to be friends with the president and all of this stuff. So for about a decade, 11 years, something like that, Donald Trump has kind of been the organizing principle of the ecosystem of right wing media. Now, if you are a careful watcher of Fox News, as I consider myself to be, you have started to see, as we've covered, Fox is starting to question a little bit some things that they didn't have to before. And one of those questions goes back to the succession planning that the Republican

party is doing, what is going to be the media product after Donald Trump is gone? Fox isn't a political party. It's a media company. Profit is its goal. Media companies get really nervous when they depend on one personality. And you can see kind of some hints of this in the way that the network has evolved and changed over the years. Because remember when Fox's biggest fear was Trump would abandon us and take his viewers

with them. I almost forgot about this, but I was preparing for this segment. And there was a period where Donald Trump was regularly going out and saying newsmax is the best. Fox isn't treating me so nicely anymore. O-A-N, One America News Network is the best. Fox isn't treating me so nicely anymore. And at the time, it really seemed as though Donald Trump had taken it as a personal goal to hurt Fox News and to push people to some other platform.

I don't know if Trump even promoted Lindell TV, Mike Pillow, Mike, Mike Pillow Lindell. But the whole idea was we were covering it. It looks like Trump and Fox News are kind of at war. That completely reversed, totally and completely reversed. And Donald Trump has since become friendly again with Fox News. He'll occasionally say this reporter that or they quoted a poll I don't like. They shouldn't have fallen for it. it or whatever. But basically, um, the Trump revolt and the audience revolt have ended. Let me take a

really brief detour. Remember the audience revolt? When Fox called Arizona for Biden back in 2020, some of the audience of Fox News also revolted and they were furious. How dare Fox News call a state for the guy who won it? And that helped News Max and it helped O-A-N and Fox learned something. very important from that experience. And so Fox News has come to realize the audience isn't loyal to Fox first. They're loyal to the movement first. And if we are the stewards of that movement, good for us. But if all of a sudden we're not and Trump or whoever is the dear leader says, try this other, this other channel, that's a very dangerous position for Fox News to be in. So that all kind of gets us to today. And what Fox News now has to worry about is,

Once Trump is gone, what happens if this movement fractures or if the next few years produce kind of competing versions of MAGA or what if the primary gets kind of ugly and complicated and what do we do? And there isn't a clear leader. That's a tough situation for Fox News because instead of serving one audience, they would have to figure out how do we serve two, three, four audiences who increasingly hate each other. You might have the pro-Trump people that like Vance budding heads against those who go, we need Rubio, not Vance. And so if you think about that, some of the recent programming decisions on Fox News start to make a little more sense because they are now interested in elevating ideas rather than personalities.

It's less about follow this one person, but more about here's the movement. Here's the ideology and the coalition. And that is a much safer, although I would argue, much less interesting place for viewers to sort of see. But it's a much safer place to be if you're a media company. A movement can survive leadership changes. A network built around one guy is very vulnerable to the fate of that one guy. Now, we're singling out Fox because they're kind of the biggest and the most relevant to us.

But media companies face these. issues. I'm going to give you some examples that I think you'll find interesting. ESPN and the NBA after Michael Jordan. Okay, that's one example. More relevant. In 2016, there were a bunch of left-wing channels that rose only on the back of we support Bernie. No one else is acceptable. if Bernie's not the nominee, I'm staying home. And then they essentially disappeared when Bernie was not the nominee. And I don't even, I remember there was like there was one woman in Massachusetts who had like it was all Bernie all the time. And when Bernie wasn't the nominee, poof, she just disappeared.

And there are a bunch of different examples of that. So this is a real situation. And if you're prepared before it happens, it's better than if you're not. And I believe Fox News is preparing right now. They haven't announced anything. They haven't announced. We are now moving away from being a network based around the cult of personality of Trump. It's just their incentives are changing a little bit. And they've got a challenge long term that is no longer going to be we have to keep Trump happy. It's going to be we have to be the center of right wing media when the next Republican civil war starts. Everybody needs to want to come to us. One of the interesting things I spoke about, about with Tim Miller from the bulwark last time we talked is the question of is there a sort of

taste maker agenda setter in the right right now. And Tim Miller said there really kind of isn't. It's certainly not Ben Shapiro. It is not Sean Hannity. I don't believe it's Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is appealing to a particular wing of the right, but Tucker Carlson's not setting the the agenda. And so what does Fox News do if this right wing splits into a bunch of different camps and they end up identified only with one of them? That's bad for business. They need to be a home for all of this insanity.

And so we are seeing these subtle shifts in how they talk about issues and how they talk about people. Now the smartest people running Fox know that it is not Democrats that are a threat to them. for as long as Democrats do stuff that Fox can criticize, that's great for Fox News. The threat to Fox is a conservative movement that fights with itself and says a bunch of the factions say Fox is no longer on our side. So they are now trying to get above the fight. They don't want to be trapped in the fight. And you can tell they have no idea who the leader of this Republican party is going to be after Trump is gone. I'm not blaming them. I have no idea either. I don't think Republicans voter

Republican voters know. But Fox News knows we've got to adjust before it's too late and they're doing it already. All right. Let's talk about J.D. Vance now in a more serious manner. We earlier talked about the Trump aspect of his succession plan. The conventional wisdom has been vance is the future. Trump picked them. He's the VP, heir apparent, etc. And I already told you earlier that is no longer the end of the discussion. I want to dig in in more detail to some of this right now. I am seeing signs that some of the people who matter most in Republican politics are increasingly uneasy with the idea that J.D. Vance is the next leader of the movement. And I want to talk about What is it about Vance that is a concern to many of these Republican insiders other than simply

it doesn't seem Trump respects him? What is it about Vance? That's a problem. I think it's very straightforward. Trump has something. I don't like the guy, but I've got to admit it that not a lot of politicians necessarily have. You might love Trump.

You might hate Trump. He dominates the room. He dominates the news. cycle, he dominates attention. You can build a media career around simply following Trump around and reporting how great everything he's doing is. And even to some degree by saying how terrible everything that he's doing is, he has a form of charisma that I don't respect. I've talked about it. It's a, you know, scapegoating and insults and this sort of stuff. But he has a form of of charisma that some people like and react to. Vance doesn't have anything close to that.

Vance speaks and you hear not just a politician, but you hear like kind of just a pathetic, squirrely little guy. When Trump speaks, you go, this is the main character. But what this guy is doing and saying is the story and how everyone in the room even reacts to Trump is the opposite of how people react to J.D. Vance. I believe at this point. So we've kind of built this up today. We talked about the chaos within MAGA. We talked about the difficulty for Fox News around figuring out who's next. I think Republican donors and activists and elected officials are really seeing the very important differences between Trump and Vance. They know that eventually they are going to need someone that can hold the

coalition together. And it is a coalition that somehow Trump has held together mostly through force personality. J.D. doesn't have that personality. As soon as you say, the heir to Trump must have a dominant personality to hold the movement together. And then you look at J.D. Vance. Vance doesn't have that. And if you just look at the last few months even, he has been put in these more visible positions, major media responsibilities, policy responsibilities, foreign policy now with Iran. And he doesn't come out of this stuff looking like a leader. He looks like some. He looks like some who is really struggling to get anybody to pay attention to him, to get anybody to like him, and to even get a single success.

I want to go back to Iran briefly. Trump put Vance at the center of the Iran issue with huge downside risk, common for vice presidents. If it works out, Trump gets headlines. If it goes badly, Vance is associated with failure. And it basically ends his chances in 2028. And the result is the talk of JD Vance has gone way up. The amount of presence that Vance has in the media is hugely bigger than it was six months ago.

Part of it is because of his book tour. Part of it is because of the Iran negotiations. But it's increasing attention on Vance without increasing confidence in Vance. Now, I'll briefly mention Marco Rubio and I know we talked about this earlier. Rubio's profile has been rising not as much. But it's rising in a much more positive way. Rubio understands how to operate within government. Rubio understands diplomacy.

He seems more comfortable. He's comfortable in high level diplomatic settings. He can deal with foreign leaders. Foreign leaders respect Rubio a little more than they respect Vance. And Vance is terrible at dealing with the press, whereas Rubio is sort of like, okay, he is deceptive, no doubt about it. But we're doing an analysis that is sort of the internal logic of this. And I believe that this is the bigger.

problem for Vance, which is it's not a Republican field that is standing still, still, just waiting. And then J.D. Vance has years to try to make himself look as good as possible. Everybody's being evaluated. Donors are making calculations. Conservative media is making calculations. The party operatives are thinking, what do we want to do now? And it all revolves around one question. Does J.D. Vance have the personality. the confidence, the charisma, and the gravitas to lead the MAGA movement after Trump is gone. I think it's obviously a no. Being Trump's successor requires so many traits that Vance completely lacks.

And Vance struggles even to command attention. And he becomes the story only in negative ways. And there's growing evidence that a lot of the most influential Republicans just don't think that he can do it. So I don't think we'll see like an open rebellion against J.D. Vance. I think it's something that will actually make it harder for him to deal with, which is quietly, everybody's losing confidence in J.D. And when people lose confidence and they look for alternatives, you've kind of already lost. There's no way to convince people that they should be confident in you. because trying to convince people of that reeks of lacking confidence, if that makes sense.

So Vance has some personality, intelligence, and charisma issues that I simply don't think he's going to be able to overcome. Let me know what you think. Kear Starmar is resigning as UK prime minister after just two years. We will talk about it on the bonus show. A Trump-backed populist won a very tight Colombian presidential vote, sparking. protests. We will talk about that on the bonus show. And the new Air Force one, gifted with no expectation of anything from Qatar, has arrived at Joint Base Andrews. And Trump recently said that the

previous Air Force one is in mint condition. So why do you need a new one? It's all very weird. It's all very corrupt. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman.com. Get instant access. I'll see you then. And remember, the pre-order campaign for my new book starts today. Go to David Pacman.com slash attention. You can read about how to get signed copies. Amazon Barnes & Noble audiobook. It is all there.